There is a statue of Our Lady of Grace in front of a house on Central Avenue that your brother and I pass on our walk to work. She rests on a tree stump between two cypress trees that sprout unruly and cover two of the first floor windows. It is my guess that she has been there for generations; the almost Aquafresh blue of her mantle spilling onto her simple white robe after years and years of weather. She watches us from the spotty shade of her dark green niche as we jostle by on the uneven sidewalk and I cannot help but purse my lips. How could she have been allowed to drift into this state of disrepair?

And then I look at her. Really look at her. Her hands like two perfect seashells (slightly cupped and worn by the water rolling off the roof) stretching out beyond her mottled veil toward the boughs of the trees. Open. Ready. Her face stained and streaked and washed of any painted detail. Steady. Kind. Her blue stippled feet peaking out from under her robe rest firmly on the blanched serpent coiled across the statue's curved base. I look at her almost lost in the tangle of branches and I love her better than I have ever loved her in the cavernous belly of the Basilica where I mostly go to visit with her. I love her best here because there is something true and penetratingly urgent about her. She stands in the relative chaos of this forgotten little garden in front of the house with graying wood siding on the street with the haphazard sidewalk and looks at me patiently, but with resolve. She is saying "Stand still. Stand in the midst of your meetings, your laundry, your emails, your bills, your clutter, your appointments. Stand with your hands open. Do not be ashamed to be messied. Let grace pour over you and in you and through you. Let it dishevel you. Take it from anyone who will offer it to you. Be greedy for it. Give it to everyone. Give more than you think is prudent. Know that you are God's own. Crush under your feet anything that says otherwise."

I think about this the whole way home as we pass her for the second time today. Your brother pulls on the string of a rainbow swirled helium balloon that he charmed out of the hands of the priest whose fiftieth birthday we had gathered at the Parish Center to celebrate. My eyes scan the lawns, sidewalk, and gutter for the shoe he lost on our earlier journey. He falls asleep about half way home to the quiet rumble of traffic. The string still mixed up in his fingers is almost too perfect and I narrowly resist the urge to sweep my lips across his limp hand as I listen to the quick snatches of sound that escape each car as it whizzes past. I am standing still. I am standing still at the corner of Crain and B & A Boulevard and picturing the image of Our Lady of Grace on Central Avenue tucked into a pocket inside my heart and I watch it dissolve in the deep red of me into swirls of white, blue, and green and course through my veins to that place where our blood meets. I want you to have her.